From Lagos to Dallas

In the morning of Tuesday, June 18, 2008, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye was gathered in Bible study with the leaders of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, North America (RCCGNA) in Floyd (near Dallas), Texas. Also in attendance was a large entourage of senior pastors and leaders from Lagos, Nigeria. It was standing room only in the small conference room of his official residence at the RCCGNA camp. In his usual way, he was teaching and admonishing those in attendance to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind and revealing the benefits that come from such a dedication. He taught that if only they sincerely loved God, they could begin to hear and see things that others could not hear or see, and they could hear specially and directly from God himself. To drive home his point, he referred to Numbers 12:8: “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” (KJV). He explained to those of us in the room that the phrase “mouth to mouth” does not just refer to Moses's unique level of prophecy or merely that God communicated with Moses in plain language and not through dreams and visions or that God was speaking directly through Moses's mouth. There is something deeper. He said God revealed to him the real meaning of “With him I speak mouth to mouth”: “I kissed him.” He added that Moses reached this level of intimacy with God because of his desire and love of God. He, Adeboye, also got this privileged information because of dedication to the Lord. The pastors in the room can likewise go beyond the phenomenal materiality of the Bible and excavate uncommon and invisible knowledge if only they will love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. He capped his comments by saying, “My only desire is to love God more and more.”